The New York Public Library has a secret. After hours, a group of librarians called The Night Librarians make sure book characters stay put in their books. You see, the older a book is, the more bored its characters are of reliving the same old story day after day. So the Night Librarians make sure Peter Pan flies back to Neverland and Scrooge stays put in Olde England, and most alarmingly, that Captain Hook, the ghosts, and other dangerous villains don’t wreak havoc on library patrons.
But when twins Page and Turner accidentally lose their father’s priceless first edition of Dracula in the NYPL stacks, they lose the title character with it. Due to budget cuts by the new and no-nonsense library director, the Night Librarian staff is down to one solitary worker. Can Page and Turner and The Night Librarian track down Dracula (and reign in the sudden influx of magical monsters working their way out of the hardcovers)?
This is a very charming middle grade graphic novel. It wasn’t a favorite of my comic book club kids, but they still had a spirited discussion about it. The book is a fantastic way to introduce readers to many classic books – not sure if it will get them interested in actually reading them, but you never know. We meet characters from the pages of Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Treasure Island, and some old-school horror characters (though they aren’t too scary). Parents will enjoy some of the jokes, such as a particularly amusing turn of events when Tinkerbell finds herself in The Art of War. The NYC setting is a lot of fun and there’s a lot of love for the good ol’ NYPL, including the lions, of course.
The cartoons are super cute – I especially loved how gender-neutral Page and Turner are drawn, and the natural way their pronouns are introduced. That led to an easy discussion on gender and how people present. The most charming thing about this book is that it is the debut graphic novel for illustrator Christopher Lincoln, at the ripe “old” age of 70-something. Never give up on your dreams!
